Offender Based Transaction Statistics (OBTS), 1981: California, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Utah, Minnesota, New York, and Virginia

Offender Based Transaction Statistics (OBTS) studies are designed to collect information by tracking adult offenders from the point of entry into the criminal justice system (typically by arrest) through final disposition, regardless of whether the offender is convicted or acquitted. Information is provided on arrest, police action, prosecutor action, level of charges, charges filed by the prosecutor, type of counsel, pretrial status, type of trial, sentence type, and sentence length. This allows researchers to examine how the criminal justice system processes offenders, to measure the changing volume of offenders moving through the different segments of the criminal justice system, to calculate processing time intervals between major decision-making events, and to assess the changing structure of the offender population.

以犯罪者为追踪核心的交易统计（Offender Based Transaction Statistics, OBTS）研究旨在通过追踪成年犯罪者从进入刑事司法体系的初始节点（通常为被捕时刻）直至最终处置的全流程来收集信息，无论该犯罪者最终被定罪还是无罪释放。该研究涵盖的信息包括被捕情况、警方处置措施、检察官办案行为、指控等级、检察官提起的指控罪名、辩护律师类型、审前状态、审判类型、刑罚类型以及刑期时长，可帮助研究者分析刑事司法体系对犯罪者的处理流程，测算流经刑事司法体系各环节的犯罪者数量变化，计算重大决策节点间的处理时长间隔，并评估犯罪者群体的结构变迁。